


It Will Come Back

by Goodluckdetective (scorpiontales)



Category: Overwatch (Video Game)
Genre: Angst, Father-Son Relationship, Gen, Implied/Referenced Brainwashing, May be continued?, Talon Jesse McCree
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-09-28
Updated: 2016-09-28
Packaged: 2018-08-18 07:02:08
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,421
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8153174
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/scorpiontales/pseuds/Goodluckdetective
Summary: There’s a new agent for Talon. One whose footsteps echo down the hallway.No, Gabriel thinks. They were supposed to leave him alone.





	

**Author's Note:**

> For this piece of art (http://sessomesmaru.tumblr.com/post/151029623120/talonmccree-stream#notes) by sessomesmaru. Because if you throw angst in front of me, I will carry it off with glee. Big thanks to sroloc--elbisivni who I threw this at and said “PLEASE HELP ME FIX THIS IT’S A MESS” and did so like a champion, I am in their debt.

Talon refused to tell him who the new recruit was.

It was the first time in a long time Reaper had been denied information about Talon--at least when it came to information pertaining to troop movements, agents and specs. Since joining the organization and proving himself an asset, they’d let him on most of the dealings. This was first in years they’d flatly told him no. When he repeated his request, voice a low growl, all he got was a shake of the head and nothing more. The message was clear: this was not his business, and if he attempted to make it so, they’d stonewall him. 

Reaper took their response with no complaint, only stomping out to show his displeasure. Gabriel Reyes, on the other hand, spent the entire night punching at the bags in his safehouse.

He’d joined Talon for a reason, and it wasn’t for the money. It was for the information. Gabriel wanted to know who’d burnt Overwatch down, who’d turned him into this thing, and Talon had the answers. So a month into his resurrection, he’d put on a mask. Called himself the Reaper. Buried Gabriel Reyes like he was meant to be. Let himself be Talon’s pawn, let them think he was on their side, as he waited for the proper opening.

It was the worst undercover job Gabriel had ever taken. It was also the only one where his only confidant was himself.

He looked at his wrecked punching bag; the chain broken, the remnants lying on the floor. He kicked some stuffing out of the way. Fighting in the Reaper costume had gotten easier over the years, but sometimes he forgot how well his gauntlets could tear into things. He took off the cloak, throwing it on the ground and paced around his training space. 

Talon was hiding something from him. Someone. 

He closed his eyes. Was he compromised? He didn’t think so; he’d been too careful. Maybe it was something they didn’t think he’d approve of? It was possible. But what the hell did they think the Reaper would raise a fuss about?

He walked over to his desk in the corner of the room. It had a tablet for Talon operations and not much else. He pulled up an internet browser and combed through the news, looking for information about Overwatch. There was nothing. No one reported about a phantom organization.

Gabriel resisted the urge to punch the wall. There was nothing. Absolutely nothing. 

He’d led Blackwatch for years. There was nothing more he hated than being left in the dark.

Gabriel dragged his hand down his face. Heading towards the middle of the floor, he picked up his Reaper outfit and slung it over his shoulder. 

This was a matter of waiting _ , _ he thought. The same shit he’d done the last few years, digging deeper when he had the chance and watching out until then. Dirty but necessary work. He looked down at his hand, black smoke drifting off each finger and chuckled, tone bitter. It wasn’t like he didn’t have the time to spare. 

He just hoped it would be sooner rather than later.

 

* * *

 

Gabriel didn’t have to wait long; they decided to introduce him to the new recruit in under a week.

There wasn’t much fanfare about it, just a simple announcement that he had to come by the training room to meet the new blood. Reaper complied, and when he entered the room an hour later, he found there was an air of excitement from the two other agents there. Scientist types. They looked almost gleeful. Behind them was a pair of double doors that led down a hallway. Gabriel had a feeling their new agent would come from there. Fitting for Talon to be fucking dramatic about everything.

“We think you’ll like this one,” one of the Agents said as he entered. Gabriel doubted that; he didn’t like anyone on base, except Amélie. And that was out of respect for the woman he used to know.

“Why the fuck am I here?” Reaper said, looking at the two higher up agents. “You hire someone incompetent enough that you need me to train them?” 

The two agents looked at each other, smirks on their faces. It was disgusting. 

“I don’t think you’ll need to,” one of the agents said. “You already did once.”

Reaper tilted his head. “What the fuck is that suppose to me--”

He cut off at once, hearing a noise from behind the doors. Footsteps. The new agent, arriving at last. Each step brought a rhythmic click, and as the sound grew closer, Gabriel’s stomach twisted. He knew that noise. 

Spurs.

“ _ No. _ ” And this time, he forgot to speak with the growl of Reaper. This time, he spoke with the voice of Gabriel Reyes, the man long dead. The man who’d lead Blackwatch for years until it all fell apart. A man who, early on in his career, came to his interrogation room to find a kid shy of 17 staring at the glass with a black eye-

“Found him a month back,” the agent said, voice tinged with glee.. “We applied project Widowmaker at once. He put up a fight, but-” The man shrugged. “Well, we do good work here.”

_ Good work. _ Gabriel wanted to be sick. This was clearly some joke, some terrible joke. The sound of approaching footsteps seemed to get even louder. The person walking towards them wasn’t going fast; no he was meandering. Taking his sweet time.

A memory hit Gabriel, something from a lifetime ago. Yelling at a new recruit to walk with some goddamn pride. The same recruit trying to do exactly that and looking like a toy soldier. Gabriel had almost laughed in his face.

“We thought you might protest. We know how you wanted to kill him yourself.” The other agent was less enthused, dealing with this whole matter like it was routine. It made it somehow worse. “We thought he had promise.” They look at him with a mild glare. “He’s an asset now. If you kill him, you waste weeks of work.”

Gabriel realized after a moment that they expected him to speak. The sound of the footsteps had stopped. He forced back on the guise of Reaper. 

“He’s an ingrate. He wasn’t worth your time!” He wasn’t worth their time. No, they should have left him alone. That was the point, the reason he’d told nothing of stories by exaggerated importance. So they wouldn’t consider him a threat.

The scientist rolled their eyes. “He eliminated twenty of our agents in a month. He was worth our time.” They looked to the door and shrugged. “Anyway, it doesn’t matter. You got your revenge; the man you knew is essentially dead anyway.”  

Gabriel resisted the urge to lunge towards the agent’s throat. The doors opened and he froze, his gaze shooting right to the floor. The spurs on the man’s boots almost shone.

“Hey, Reyes.” The voice was what made it real. Gabriel forced himself to look up, to take in the man before him. They’d given him black armor like the kind he wore in Blackwatch, red lights replacing the blue. His prosthetic was new, red lights blinking on the side.  His good arm had a gauntlet that matched his new prosthetic, and for a terrible moment, Gabriel thought that they took his other arm as well. He’d shaved, his hair back in a ponytail. He was better groomed than he’d been in years.

It was horrific. 

“Miss me?” McCree said, tilting his head, cocky smile appearing. It looked wrong; too smug, too confident. He could see the Talon influence in the gesture. 

The answer was yes. He’d missed McCree, missed his dumb jokes, the force at his back he could always rely on. Missed the kid he’d dragged out from the desert, the man he’d grown to be.

He flipped through nicknames he’d called the kid over the years. Kid, when he was fresh in the ranks. McCree, when it was an order. Jesse, when the mission was done and they made it out alive. 

_ Mijo, _ when McCree had been lying in a hospital bed, arm gone, hooked up to a respirator.

He used none of them now. Instead, he put himself back into the mindset of the Reaper. Pushed down the urge to scream for later, the desire to take McCree and run for another time. When he spoke, it was with Reaper’s growl.

“Ingrate.”

McCree grinned back at him.


End file.
